Another asteroid, Asteroid SD9, will come dangerously close on the same night approaching the Earth within 4.22 lunar distances or just over one million miles (1.6 million km).

As of September 2017, there are approximately 3.5 million NEOs larger than 32 feet (10m) across.

Any NEO that measures more than 459 feet (140m) in size is classed by NASA as a “potentially hazardous” object.

About 90 percent of the NEOs are in the 32 feet (10m) to 64 feet (20m) range.

NASA asteroid: The space rock barrels through space at the speed of 14.03 km per second (Image: GETTY)

Asteroids of this size carry a number of impact risks, with some of the bigger ones capable of levelling entire cities and killing millions.

Astronomer Lori Allen, who published a paper on NEOs last year, wrote: “While very large – 10 km-sized – impactors can induce mass extinction events like the event that led to the demise of the dinosaurs, much smaller impactors can also wreak havoc.

“The meteoroid that exploded in Chelyabinsk unleashed a powerful shock wave that destroyed buildings and blew people off their feet.

“Relatively petite at a ‘mere’ 17 meters in diameter, comparable to the size of a 6-story building, the impactor, when it exploded, released about 10 times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.”